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NOTES
i* |
gl/
ON THE
;(y
PRESENT CONDITION
OF
RAILWAY LEGISLATION.
♦
1
LONDON:
•TAMES 151(1 G AND SONS, 53, PARLIAMENT STREET.
\
April, 1854.
PRICE SIXPENCE.
London : printed iiv w. clowbs and sons, stampohd street, and charing cross.
NOTES
ON THE
PRESENT CONDITION
OF
RAILWAY LEGISLATION.
BY THOMAS COAXES.
LONDON:
JAMES BIGG AND SONS, 53, PARLIAMENT STREET.
1854.
LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
AND CIIAUING CROSS.
ADVERTISEMENT.
It would have better suited my own hard-earned
leisure, and the convenience of my readers, if I had
condensed these Notes into that compendious form
which it is the habit to adopt, and to endorse " Rea¬
sons," and so circulate among Members, before a
division on a private Bill,—the characteristicks of
those Documents being that they shall assert
boldly, assume largely, and denounce fiercely.
But the subject-matter of these Notes is too grave
to be so treated. Property of enormous value, on
which more than 100,000 persons are directly em¬
ployed, and on which probably ten times that num¬
ber absolutely depend for their subsistence, is more
or less at stake on this discussion; the publick
faith is involved in it; and another step is taking
towards founding that against which every man who
values our institutions revolts as it were instinctively;
and which we must borrow from our neighbours,
who have fatal experience of it, a word to express
—a Bureaucracy.
Not that I suppose the President of the Board of
a 2
( 4 )
Trade to desire the troublesome dominion which his
Bill prepares for him—no sane man could desire it;
but the result is inevitable if his Bill passes.
In truth, the Board of Trade has been hardly
dealt with. The obnoxious Clauses which I shall
have to discuss were suggested by them for insertion
only (unfortunately their expression is "at least")
in Bills authorising fresh combinations of interest
among Railway Companies. The Board are not to
blame if these Clauses have been rashly forced into
all Bills, and if the motive for their insertion has
been indiscreetly revealed.
*
I "would that this matter were in abler hands;
but its importance will, I trust, ensure for these
Notes the patience, and perhaps the indulgence, of
the reader.
24, Parliament Street, 18^ April, 1854.
NOTES
ON THE PRESENT CONDITION
OF
RAILWAY LEGISLATION.
At the end of the year 1852 notice was given of the
intention to introduce into Parliament Bills lor
uniting the interests of certain large Railway Com¬
panies, either by amalgamation or by purchase, or
by some other means; and the question of publick
policy then arose whether the greater facilities
which the internal intercourse of the country would
avowedly derive from united instead of divided
management, and identical instead of rival interests,
would be more than counterbalanced by the risks
which might attend the intrusting of that inter¬
course absolutely to a few vast Corporations.
To solve this problem, or, in the words of the Committee of
Resolution (6th Dec. 1852) " to consider the way and Camil
I > • 11
principle of Amalgamation," " and to consider the 1 s'
principles which ought to guide the House in Rail¬
way Legislation," Mr. Cardwell's Committee (as
it is called) was appointed; and they, at the end of
the Session (8th July, 1853), made their final
Report. They recommended that the amalgamation
of Companies should not be sanctioned, excepting
( 6 )
in minor and special cases; but 44 that every Railway
Company should be compelled to afford to the
Publick the full advantage of convenient inter¬
change from one system to another ; and to afford
to every class of Traffick, including Postal Com¬
munication, just facilities." This Report has never
been considered, or its recommendations adopted, in
any manner by the House.
" General At the beginning of the present Session the " Ge-
Kaiiw^yand0 neral Committee on RailwTay and Canals Bills" was
<*£ Bllls' nominated. It consists of forty Members, and was
presided over ex officio by the Chairman of Ways
and Means (Mr. Bouverie). The Committee issued,
first, 44 Resolutions for the guidance of Sub-Com¬
mittees among which wras one determining in
the negative the great question of amalgamations,
and another directing (under what pretext it is diffi¬
cult to say) the quantity of luggage to be allowTed to
passengers. They likewise issued a series of 44 Clauses
to be inserted in all Bills."
Mode of issu- These Resolutions and Clauses were communicated
Resolutions. to the Sub-Committees on Railway Bills, certainly not
by any unanimous vote of the General Committee, or
after mature deliberation, far less after taking the
opinion of the House on them; but privately, al¬
most surreptitiously, without any formal or authori¬
tative notice of the intention to insert them, and
with the view (frankly and publickly avowed by
Mr. Bouverie, in the House of Commons) of beating
Railway Companies in detail, and inflicting on them
individually conditions and duties which it would
be vain to attempt to impose on them by any
( 7 )
general law—an avowal, coming as it does from
such a source, which is well worthy to be pondered
now and henceforth by those who have invested
more than three hundred millions of money—
Heaven knows how unprofitably—in Railways ; and
not unworthy either of observation by those Members
of the Legislature who attach some value to the
method of making laws affecting vast interests in a
free state.
Albeit, these Clauses, though expressly repudiated
by some, and questioned by other, Sub-Committees,
have been inserted in a number of Bills,* without
any discussion being permitted on them. In one
instance,f the Committee on the Bill having con¬
sidered these Clauses and rejected them, Mr.
Bouverie, to whom belonged the mechanical office,
in such circumstances, of reporting the Bill to the
House, stopped the progress of the Bill; and of his
own mere discretion, without the authority of the
House, and in spite of its Committee, insisted on the
adoption of this new code for the government of 300
miles of railway and 12 millions of capital. The
Bill, having been tossed for a fortnight to and fro
in the House, just now happens to be without the
Clauses. It is a strange thing for great interests to
* The following is a list of Companies against whom the Clauses are
inserted:—Ambergatc, Nottingham, and Boston and Eastern Junction;
Blyth and Tyne ; Eastern Union ; East Lancashire ; Eastern Counties ;
Hertford, Ware, and Welwyn Junction ; London, Tilbury, and Southend ;
London, Brighton, and South Coast; Lancashire and Yorkshire ; North
London ; Portsmouth ; Whitehaven, Cleaton, and Egrcmont. The capital
of these Companies exceeds forty-nine millions; their Kail ways exceed
1140 miles in extent.
t The South-Eastern (Lewisham to Bromley) Bill.
( 8 )
be so dealt with. It may be quite convenient that
the Chairman of Ways and Means for the time being,
at his pleasure, without hearing evidence or having
the right to hear it, and without any but the most
desultory discussion, should so exercise his absolute
will on grave matters, much controverted, and still
undecided, by that Body whose officer he is, but, so
far as I understand the constitution of these realms,
it has not yet intrusted such powers to that func¬
tionary.
As the opinion of the House of Commons will be
taken on them upon the 27th inst., it deeply con¬
cerns Shareholders, and those whose duty it is to
watch in Parliament over the interests of their con¬
stituencies, to consider wrhat these Clauses enact.
Analysis of The first Clause compels the Company, notwith-
Clauses. • ^ ' ®
standing anything contained in their previous Acts,
to make all such arrangements as may be necessary
for receiving and forwarding all lawful traffick upon
their Railway and Canal, and for the delivery of
that traffick from their Railway, and for the return
of carriages and trucks.
The second Clause requires the Company so to
regulate the hours for the arriving and starting of
their trains at any point of junction, or at any station
near to which another Company has a station or
wharf, u or at the point where transit is intended
to be made from one means of communication to the
other," as that the traffick may be duly forwarded,
and the publick have all reasonable accommoda¬
tion.
( 9 )
The third Clause constitutes the Board of Trade
sole arbiter of the meaning of the word " near."
These clauses, if they were reciprocal, would per¬
haps be open to little objection; but the fourth
Clause practically, and by an easy and well-devised
process, transfers to the Board of Trade absolute
dominion over any Railway which it may think fit
to control, leaving to the Company nothing but the
responsibility.
If any man recovers a judgment in any court,
even the County Court, against the Company, with
respect to its arrangements for receiving, forwarding,
or delivering of traffick, or with respect to the times
of starting, stopping, or arriving of trains, or to its
charges, or in any other respect, the Board of Trade
may, upon that man's application, either after in¬
quiry (which may be secret or open, and at the
expense of the Company), or without inquiry, make
such order upon the Company as they think fit con¬
cerning arrangements of traffick, or the regulations f or
conducting the same, or for the " adjustment of tolls,
rates, and chargesand may direct all such matters
to be done from time to time by the Company as the
Board may think calculated to remedy the alleged
grievance.
Then the last Clause enables the Board to inflict
an unlimited daily penalty if the Company fails to
give full effect to the order of the Board.
Thus, let the intention of the Clauses be what it Summary of
may, their effect is this :—that at the instance of any tlieCIauseb
a 3
( 10 )
man who can convict a Railway Company of tripping
in any of its minutest duties, the whole undertaking
of that Company may be handed over to the Board
of Trade. I am wrong; the whole undertaking is
not handed over to the Board. True it is that they
may prescribe the time of arriving and stopping of
trains, may regulate the traffick, may " adjust" the
tolls: but there will remain still some portion of
their undertaking to the Shareholders :— outlay;
anxiety; responsibility for accidents or omissions;
litigation; fines.
Mr.Cardweii's Meanwhile the attention of Railway Companies
and of Members of Parliament was aroused not only
to these enactments, but to what was deemed still
more reprehensible, the method of introducing them ;
and on the 6th of April Mr. Card well, in compliance
with the opinion very unequivocally expressed by
the House, obtained leave to introduce a Bill affect¬
ing all Railway Companies, under the title of " Rail¬
way and Canal Traffick Regulation Bill." This
Bill contains provisions similar to the Clauses in
their object, but differing greatly in their machinery,
and, so far as that difference goes, less objectionable
than the Clauses. This, however, is certain,—that
the Bill and the Clauses are incompatible; the
Bill condemns the machinery prescribed by the
Clauses; and to have one half of the Railways
administered under the Clauses, whilst the other
half is administered under the Bill, would lead to
inextricable confusion. Leaving the interests of
Railway Companies out of the question—for that
seems the fashion—it is due to the Courts, who must
administer the law; to the Board of Trade, who are
*
( 11 )
to rule the Courts; and to the Publick, who are to
profit, as it seems, by this strange process; that, as
a preliminary condition to all useful discussion, the
Clauses should be expunged, on the 27th, from all
Bills.
Mr. Card well's Bill was read a second time with¬
out debate on the 11th of April, and it stands abso-
lutely for discussion on the l<s£ of May.
The Bill (Clauses II. and III.) enables Railway
Companies to enter into working agreements with
the consent of the Board of Trade; and deprives them
of any power which they now possess of making those
agreements without that consent. And, strangely
enough, these Clauses practically enable the Board
of Trade to authorise the permanent amalgamation
of any Railway Companies; and although something
is said about opponents bringing their objections
before the Board, yet there is no provision for open
discussion, or taking of evidence. Let this Bill pass,
and six weeks afterwards the Board of Trade may,
without consulting Parliament, and without discus¬
sion, authorise the very amalgamations which the
Committee of 1853 reprobates.
The fourth Clause enables Courts of Justice to
refer suits between Railway Companies to the Board
of Trade at the instance of one party, and in spite of
the other. The words of this Clause are so vague that
they seem to involve any difference, whether founded
on legal right or supposed publick convenience.
Then come the Clauses (V- to XII.) which are
( 12 )
justly deemed perilous to Railway property, mis¬
chievous as precedents in legislation, inoperative for
any good, fraught with endless litigation, and incom¬
patible with the rights guaranteed by the State to
Railway Companies,—if indeed it be permitted now-
a-days to Railway Companies ever to plead the
rights so vested in them.
The fifth, sixth, and seventh Clauses of the Bill
are identical with the three first of the Clauses for
" Forwarding of Traffick," and they have been already
discussed. The eighth alters materially the ma¬
chinery created by the Clauses for handing over to
the Board of Trade the management of Railways
and the fixing of their tolls; and it substitutes this
marvellous process:—any man who complains (page
5, line 36) of a Railway Company with respect to
the arrangements for the receiving, forwarding, or
delivering of traffick; or with respect to the times
of starting, stopping, or arriving of their trains; or
with respect to the Tolls, Rates, or Charges exacted
by such Company, or in any other respect (page 6,
line 2), may petition the Court of Chancery to refer
the case to the Board of Trade for their consideration
and report. And neither here nor throughout the
Clauses does it seem that the Court or the Board is
to be restricted by the legal rights of the parties, or
by any other tie than their notion of convenience for
the time being. Then the Court (Clause 9) may order
the Board to inquire into the case, and the Board, if
it thinks fit, may report its opinion on the same, and
upon any " arrangements as to the traffick, or any
adjustment of the tolls, rates, and charges upon the
Railway " (line 25), which appear to the Board "to
( 13 )
be just or reasonableand finally, the Court (Clause
10) may make such order upon that Report "as
the Court thinks proper"and so on toties quoties"
(p. 6, line 43). Nay, more; the Court may order
the petition to be served on any other Company
(p. 7, line 10); "or may direct any other proceeding
to be taken." These are really the words of the Bill:
—" And the Company so served shall thereupon be
liable to be dealt with by the Court as a party to
such suit." Surely the lawyers may adopt the lan¬
guage of the owls in the Eastern apologue, and ex¬
claim, " Long live Mr. Cardwell! while he reigns
we shall never want Chancery suits ! " What Share¬
holders may exclaim, if breath is left to them for
ejaculation, is another matter.
The 13th Clause is by no means the least objec¬
tionable of the Bill—it enables any Railway Com¬
pany, without the consent of its opponent, to refer to
the Board of Trade any action or suit in which it is
involved, and so substitutes that Board, absolutely
and without appeal, for the legal tribunals of the
country.
Lastly comes the 14th Clause, which, if it means
anything—and grammatically it is nonsense—enables
the Court to fix an unlimited daily penalty for any
default by the Company in obedience to the order
of the Court.
Let me illustrate the process devised by the Bill;
and let the reader be well assured that the illustra¬
tion will be one day verified if the Bill passes, still
more if the Clauses are endured.
a 4
( 14 )
1 t?Uti eions ^ inventions of modern times, since the ill-
Post-Ofiice. requited Colonel Palmer devised the system of
Mail-Coaches, the Post-office owes most to Rail¬
ways. To say that the Penny Postage could not, as
in fact it could not, have been successfully introduced
without the aid of Railways, is to indicate only one
advantage, and not the greatest, which the Post-office
has derived from those great monuments of private
enterprise. Rut the Post-office, if not impatient
under these benefits, is at least insensible to them.
It is perpetually complaining; and, naturally enough,
corresponding. It had a law made for itself in 1838
against Railway Companies; by the aid of which
law (as I am told) it is perpetually deferring pay¬
ment, and going to arbitration instead. Recently
that benefactor of the human race, Mr. Rowland
Hill, unluckily for him and his department, ven¬
tured on an attack of Railway Companies in the
newspapers; and certainly he endured a most signal
defeat. It appeared incontestably that his depart¬
ment was, in his own selected cases of grievance,
always in the wrong. But the Bill passes, or—
worse—the Clauses remain in the Lancashire and
Yorkshire Railway Bill. Some day the Post-office
recovers a judgment under the 12th section of the
Act of 1838, " to provide for the Conveyance of Mails
on Railways from that moment, at the instance of
the Post-office, the Board of Trade under the Clauses,
the Court of Chancery under the Bill, has absolute
authority over the Lancashire and Yorkshire Rail¬
way ; may regulate its traffiek, may adjust its tolls;
and that, not according to any known law, but as
either the one or the other thinks just and reason-
aide.
( 15 )
What chance would any Company have against
the united forces of these two Departments of the
Government ? Then surely the day so long desired
in St. Martin's-le-Grand will have arrived, when
Railway Companies shall he the handmaidens of
the Postmaster-General, and dividends shall fade
before " Postal communication."
Again, the great Carriers are rivals fully as much 2. Carriers,
as they are agents of the great Railway Companies.
If rumour may be trusted, the confidence between
them is not cordial, or the connexion proof against
varying interests. Substitute Messrs. Pickford for
the Post-office; and in like manner the Railway will
be administered by the Great Seal or by the Board
of Trade.
Happy England ! when all its towns shall be sub¬
jected to the vagaries of the plain-dealing Mr. Chad-
wick and his practical Board of Health; and 7500
miles of Railway, representing a property so large
that to utter it conveys no definite idea, shall be
administered by the much-loved Court of Chancery!
Nor let it be said that this machinery is merely
subsidiary to the Bill; that it is a matter of detail,
and may be corrected during the progress of the Bill
through the House. On the contrary, it is the very
essence of the whole measure. The ends to be attained
were an adequate and unequivocal definition of the
duties of Railway Companies, and a method of en¬
forcing the performance of those duties. In the first
( 16 )
object the Bill absolutely fails; the definition is so
vague, that, as we have seen, it may mean whatsoever
the Court or the Board of Trade desires that it
shall mean. The method of enforcing the duties
is practically the handing over the administration of
all Railways to the Court of Chancery, who are
to be regulated by the Board of Trade.
And here we are compelled to consider, even at the
risk of wounding personal vanity, what is this Board
of Trade, which is looked upon as a solution of all
those difficulties which are inherent in every large
system, and are multiplied in proportion to the extent
of the system and the number of persons by whom
it works.
Board of Nothing can be more erroneous than the suppo¬
sition that the Board of Trade is raised at all above
the level of ordinary humanity. Like other sons
of men it is sometimes rash, at others dilatory;
not free from external influence ; and not perhaps
hedged in with that reverence on the part of those
upon whom it is to operate which acknowledged
impartiality and superiority of talent and knowledge
ensure.
Of the successive Presidents of the Board of Trade
for the last ten years it behoves me to speak in
terms of grateful respect. I have found them always
accessible, patient, anxious to learn the truth, to¬
lerant of difference of opinion, and well capable of
dealing with the great matters which, perhaps in
the form of minute details, have been submitted for
their opinion. But it is not the President who must
( 17 )
perform the functions which this new law creates;
it would be mischievous that he should. He is un¬
doubtedly not permanent in his tenure of office; so
that he can never bring experience to the task. His
duties in other respects are laborious and multifari¬
ous; leisure, therefore, and undivided attention are
equally denied. The management of Railways will
inevitably be delegated to inferior hands:
Now the Board of Trade cannot afford, in all its
departments, to purchase a high order of talent.
Successful lawyers, for instance, will rarely he found
to abandon their prospects of honour and emolument
for the sake of any office which the Board of Trade
can offer to them. Hence, those whose fate it is to
deal with this class of its functionaries run the risk
of finding a servile adherence to mere words, and an
impatience of contradiction, mingled with a tenacity
of authority, which would make one contemplate
with the liveliest apprehension the handing over to
that Board of the grave legal duties which the Bill
proposes to confide to it.
There is a formula which is so compendious and Apology for
so often repeated, that it stands (like an adage among rights!*"2
the vulgar) in the stead of reflection, and it is used
as an apology for imposing upon Railway Companies
whatever new conditions the caprice of the day may
dictate, or depriving them of whatever rights may
for the moment be found inconvenient. It is this,—
that the Legislature has a right to impose new con¬
ditions upon Railway Companies, when these seek a
( 18 )
•
boon at the hands of Parliament. Boons from Par¬
liament ! I deny altogether this doctrine of boons.
What is it that Railway Companies seek by their
Private Bills ? Usually leave to invest further
capital for the perfecting of an undertaking already,
perhaps, but little profitable; leave to increase
stations for the publick convenience, or to make a
branch to serve some new district, with little hope
of adequate remuneration; but in all cases for
purposes which Parliament itself declares to be
conducive to the publick convenience.
I have been always at a loss to understand why
an application to Parliament for such purposes
should be deemed a pretext for interference with the
rights solemnly and deliberately conceded to Railway
Companies, or for altering the conditions upon which
proprietors have invested the Capital already ex¬
pended by them.
When indeed a Company comes voluntarily to
Parliament for leave to alter the conditions of its
original constitution—for instance, by amalgamating
itself with some other Company, or absorbing some
other undertaking within itself—then I readily
concede that Parliament has a right to prescribe its
own conditions, however new, nay, however arbi¬
trary. But none of the Bills which I have enume¬
rated, and in which the Clauses have been inserted,
are within this category.
No doubt inconvenience, perhaps injustice, some¬
times results from the present management of Rail-
( 19 )
ways. Rivalry produces hostility; then come alli¬
ances, open or concealed, sometimes to forward
the interests of the allies—oftentimes, and repre-
hensibly, to injure competitors. But much of this Competition,
evil is inherent in that wThich Parliament has for the
last fifteen years recognised as a principle of legisla¬
tion for Railways, namely, that they shall contend
with one another in the arduous struggle for subsist¬
ence ; that they shall be rivals, competitors—each
striving, by whatever means the law allows, to earn
its own dividend; and for that purpose to attract
within its own sphere wThatever traffick it can convey.
And this competition is, after all, at the root of the
whole question. Undoubtedly, by permitting com¬
petition, in spite of the warning of those who held
that what they called wTell-regulated monopoly
should be secured to existing Railway Companies,
the publick have derived great advantages: lines
constructed in districts quite incapable from their
own resources either of paying the cost of construc¬
tion, or even interest upon the cost; fares so cheap
as to be scarcely remunerative; incredible swiftness
of trains, and such frequency of trains as to suit not
only every demand of business, but every call of
caprice. But, having obtained these advantages for
the publick by competition, and still maintaining that
competition, with all its evil results upon the finances
of Railway Companies (so far as the determination
of Mr. Cardwell's Committee is to rule future le¬
gislation), it would be a monstrous injustice for
Parliament to pass a new Law, the short abstract
of which is that the Court of Chancery and the
Board of Trade may devise between themselves, and
( 20 )
may enforce, whatever means they may " think just
and reasonable " for giving to the Publick the advan¬
tages which might be supposed to flow from the
union of all Companies yito one body with united
management and identical interests.
But even this end cannot be attained by such ma¬
chinery as the Bill devises. From that machinery
nothing can result hut unending litigation of the
most costly kind; perpetual solicitations to the Board
of Trade, whom dexterously to handle will he a pro¬
fitable art; an unsettling of the present Law, which
has been found not inoperative as between Railway
Companies and the Publick; and a substitution for
that Law of undefined duties, and equally indefinite
sanctions.
Are, then, matters to remain in their present con¬
dition ? Is the Cheshire Salt not to be conveyed to
Newcastle without being first shipped at Hull? Is
the Aberdeen man to be compelled to travel by the
Caledonian Railway when he prefers the eastern
route? No doubt, admitting all these things to
be so, they are abuses. Of many grievances of
this kind, which form the stock in trade of certain
Companies, and which are repeated Session after
Session, in spite of constant refutation, with unflinch¬
ing pertinacity, I know the groundlessness. But I
repeat, assuming the evils to be as great as alleged,
they are not so great as the handing over all Rail¬
ways to the mingled mercies of the Board of Trade
and the Court of Chancery; not so great as the un-
( 21 )
settling of the present Law, which defines the duties
of Companies, and the remedy for a breach of those
duties; not, above all, so great as the intrusting to
a Department of the Executive Government the
power to define, "fromtime to time," and to enforce,
what it thinks just and reasonable, with respect to
the property of the subject.
It has been determined that the greater part
of those secret agreements, out of which the
mischief which this Bill seeks to cure has sprung,
are illegal; all of them are of limited duration;
publick opinion is adverse to them; when they are
brought, as sooner or later they are brought, by the
parties affected, under the purview of Parliament,
they recoil always, and disastrously, upon the confe¬
derates. New combinations will arise; larger views
of their own interests will be taken by Railway Com¬
panies ; and they will learn by experience, as from
year to year they have been learning, that those
interests cannot be advanced permanently in a man¬
ner incompatible with the publick convenience.
Even if a permanent tribunal could be created,
informed by varied experience, conversant with the
management of Railways, and the difficulties of that
management; learned in the Law, and well versed
in judicial investigations; dignified by well-earned
publick reputation; far removed, by its rank and
independence, from all external influence, and abso¬
lutely devoted to this onerous task ; it would still be
unsafe to intrust to such a body unlimited powers of
defining the duties of Railway Companies towards
the publick and towards each other, and of en-
( 22 )
forcing those duties by arbitrary means. But the
Board of Trade is not such a tribunal, nor is the
Court of Chancery—far less is a combination of both.
Wherefore it seems to me, who am not without
peculiar means of knowing what grievances afflict
certain Railway Companies, and through them the
Publick, what oppression is imputed to others, and
what defence the supposed oppressors urge, that, if
fresh legislation is wanted, Mr. Card well's Bill does
not solve the problems which he himself propounds.
Surely a review of the treatment of Railway Com¬
panies by the State is a sad retrospect. Compelled
to acquire their original powers at an outlay so
costly as to be almost incredible, and to incur an
outlay scarcely less large whensoever they apply to
Parliament for fresh powers ;* driven to purchase
their land at a price which it would be mild to
call excessive,f although they were opening in their
course new sources of wrealth for every district which
they traversed; subject to a taxation which no
reasoning can justify, and which has been acknow¬
ledged by successive Governments as a grievance
* The law-charges for the Great Western Railway are returned as ex¬
ceeding 82,000?. The parliamentary expenses for obtaining the Worcester
and Hereford Railway Act are stated to have exceeded the estimated cost
for constructing the Railway.
t The land for the Great Northern Railway exceeded, on an average,
1)00?. an acre.
( *3 )
from which they ought to be relieved; harassed by
perpetual threats of changes in the Law with a view
to coerce them; hearing it as an admitted dogma
that every improvement in their undertaking which
they seek from Parliament leave to make, may be a
ground for abolishing their dearly-bought rights and
altering all their relations; never receiving those
Ct equivalents" which ten years ago wTere promised
to them for concessions which they then made;
now told that competition must be the condition of
their subsistence, then denounced because they resort
to those means which the contest they would fain
have avoided renders in their eyes justifiable if not
requisite: that they should still maintain their
vigour and serve the publick with the success they
have attained would have been hopeless in any other
country than this.
They who travel with almost undeviating punctu¬
ality from the Metropolis to the Northern Capital,
between the sunrise and sunset of a day in Spring,
little think what thousand minute arrangements,
what forethought, and what vigilance must be exer¬
cised by a multitude of persons to enable the traveller
to accomplish that journey; still less do they dream
of all the commercial conditions without which the
great system by which they are profiting could not
be maintained: how the operations of neighbours,
perhaps rivals, must be brought into harmony ; how
the industry of particular towns must be directed to
this or that channel of conveyance; how frequently
arise legal questions which for their solution require
all the skill and experience of those able men to
whom Railway Companies habitually resort; what
( 24 )
physical difficulties even the varying conditions of
our climate produce to tax the ingenuity of Engineers
whose reputation and whose works are spreading over
the civilized world.
I protest that, when I reflect upon the duties
fulfilled by the Boards of Directors of our great
Railways, I shrink with alarm from the prospect
of handing over these noble enterprises to the acci¬
dents of some office at Whitehall.
( 25 >
CLAUSES OF MR. CARDWELL'S BILL,
VIII. It shall be lawful for any Company or Complaints as
Person who shall have recovered Judgment or obtained t^ar^nge-
a Decree against any Railway Company or Railway ^aUway*com-
and Canal Company in any Action or Suit in One of pany, after
k J J ^ judgment ob-
Iler Maiesty's Superior Courts at Westminster or tamed, may be
referred to tli©
Dublin, or in the Court of Session in Scotland, for Board of
Breach of any Duty imposed upon such Company ra e'
by this Act or any Act for the Time being in force
relating to such Company, or otherwise imposed by
Law upon such Company, or who otherwise com¬
plains of any such Company, with respect to the
Arrangements for the receiving, forwarding, or de¬
livering of the Traffick on or from their Railway
or Canal, or in providing for the Return of Carri¬
ages or Trucks, or with respect to the Times of start¬
ing, stopping, or arriving of any of their Trains, or
with respect to any undue Preference or Advantage
given by such Company to or in favour of any par¬
ticular Persons or Company, or any particular De¬
scription of Passengers or Goods, with respect to
the Tolls, Rates, or Charges exacted by such Com¬
pany on any Portion of their Railway or Canal, or
in any other respect, to apply by Petition in a sum¬
mary way, either to the Court in which such Judg¬
ment was recovered, or to the High Court of Chan-
( 26 )
eery in England or Ireland, if the Railway or Canal
to which the Complaint relates is situate in England
or Ireland, praying the Court to which such Applica¬
tion is made to order that the Case be referred to
the Board of Trade for their Consideration and
Report.
Upon refer¬
ence the Board
of Trade to
report on the
arrangements
necessary to
remedy the
grievance.
" IX. Upon the Hearing of any such Petition, if it
appear to the Court that the Case is one which, with
a view to devising a more complete Remedy for the
Grievance complained of, or preventing the Recur¬
rence thereof, may usefully be referred to the Board
of Trade, it shall be lawful for the Court, if it think
fit so to do, to direct the Petitioners to apply to the
Board of Trade with respect to the Matters com¬
plained of, or any of them, or any Questions arising
thereon, on which it appears to the Court that the
Opinion of the said Board would be useful to the
said Court in making the proper Order on such
Application, and to give such Directions as it thinks
fit as to the Attendance of any other Parties on the
said Board; and it shall be lawful for the said
Board, if they think fit, to inquire into and consider
the Matter of such Application, or*any Question so
submitted to them, and, after considering what is
alleged by the opposing Parties, to report to the
said Court their Opinion upon the same, and upon
any Arrangements as to the Traffick, or any Regula¬
tions for conducting the same, or any adjustment of
the Tolls, Rates, and Charges upon the Railway or
Railways of such Company or Companies, which
appear to the said Board fitted to remedy the
Grievance complained of, or to he just or reasonable,
under the special Circumstances of the Case ; and it
( 27 )
shall be lawful for the Board of Trade, upon such
Reference being made to them, to institute and
prosecute, in such Mode and by such Officers as they
think jit, all such Inquiries as they consider neces¬
sary for enabling them to form a just Opinion upon
the Matters referred to them; and the Costs in¬
curred by the Board of Trade in such Inquiries shall
in the first instance be paid by the Petitioners, and
shall, as between them and the other Parties to the
Inquiry, be deemed to be part of the Costs in the
Matter of such Petition.
" X. Upon the Report of the Board of Trade being upon report of
made under any such Reference, it shall be lawful Trade°the °f
for the said Court either to make such Order, Court to make
orders neces-
founded wholly or partially on the Report of the sary for giving
i j/-Y 7-7 • complete re-
said Board, as the Court thinks proper, or again to dress,
refer the Case, and any Questions arising thereon, to
the Board of Trade, for their further Consideration
and Report, and so on toties quoties, and after
any such further Report to make such Order in the
Premises as the Court thinks jit, and to direct all
such Acts, Matters, and Things to be done and per¬
formed from Time to Time by the Company or
Companies complained of, as well as by the Com¬
plainants, for giving full Effect to any such Order,
and for remedying the Default or Mischief or pre¬
venting the Recurrence of the Inconvenience com¬
plained of, as such Court sees jit; and it shall be
lawful for the Court to make such Order with respect
to the further Proceedings in any such Action or
Suit as it thinks fit, and also, if it think fit, to order
the Petition to be served on any other Company
whose Presence as a Party is necessary for a complete
( 28 )
Adjudication of the Matter, or to direct any other
Proceeding to be taken; and the Company so served
shall thereupon be liable to be dealt with by the
Court as a Party to such Action or Suit; and it
shall be lawful for the Court to make such Order as
it thinks fit respecting the Costs of any such Action,
Suit, or Petition as aforesaid."
LONDON : rKINTKD DT W. CLOWES AN1) SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
AND CHARING CROSS.